The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 262

JASHER, BOOK OF, a Hebrew book twice quoted in the Old Testament, no longer extant; believed to have been a collection of national ballads.

JASMIN, JACQUES, a Gascon barber and poet, who by his romances, burlesques, and odes, published between 1835 and 1849, raised the patois of the S. of France to the status of a literary language, and created a wholesome influence on French life and letters (1778-1864).

JASON, a mythological Greek hero, son of aeson, king of Iolcos; brought up by the centaur Chiron, was supplanted on the throne by his half-brother Pelias; undertook the leaders.h.i.+p of the Argonautic expedition, a.s.sisted by Medea in this enterprise; he took her to wife, but cast her off for Creusa, whom Medea to avenge herself killed, with her father and her two sons by Jason, she herself escaping to Athens in a chariot drawn by winged dragons; Jason took refuge from her fury in the sanctuary of Poseidon near Corinth, where the timber of the s.h.i.+p Argo deposited there breaking up fell upon him and crushed him to death.

JASPER, an opaque quartz found in all colours, and spotted, striped, and clouded; is valued in ornamental lapidary work because of the polish it takes.

Ja.s.sY (90), ancient capital of Moldavia, situated 89 m. NE. of Bucharest; is the seat of an archbishop and a university, and has a large community of Jews; trades largely with Russia in corn, spirits, and wine.

JaTAKA, a Pali collection of stories recounting 550 previous "births" of the Buddha, the earliest collection of popular tales, and the ultimate source of many of aesop's fables and Western folk-lore legends.

JATS, are the princ.i.p.al race in the Punjab, where they number 4 millions, and are engaged in agriculture. There is much debate as to their origin and their racial relations.h.i.+p.

JAVA (23,868), the finest island of the Indian Archipelago, lying between Sumatra and Bali, with the Indian Ocean on the S. and the Java Sea separating it from Borneo on the N., lies E. and W., traversed by a mountain chain with a rich alluvial plain on the N.; there are many volcanoes; the climate is hot, and on the coast unhealthy; the mountains are densely wooded, and the teak forests are valuable; the plain is fertile; coffee, tea, sugar, indigo, and tobacco are grown and exported; all kinds of manufactured goods, wine, spirits, and provisions are imported; the natives are Malays, more civilised than on neighbouring islands; there are 240,000 Chinese, many Europeans and Arabs; the island is nearly as large as England, and belongs to Holland; the chief towns are Batavia (105) and Samarang (70), both on the N.

JAY, JOHN, American statesman, born in New York, and called to the bar in 1768; took a part in the struggle for independence second only to Was.h.i.+ngton's; represented his country subsequently in Madrid and London; was first Chief-Justice of the United States, and from 1795 to 1801 governor of New York (1745-1829).

JAY, WILLIAM, eminent Congregationalist minister, born in Wilts.h.i.+re; was first a stone-mason, but entered the ministry, and after a short term of service near Chippenham was pastor of Argyle Chapel, Bath, for 62 years. He was an impressive preacher and a popular writer (1769-1853).

JAYADEVA, a Hindu poet, born near Burdwan, in Bengal, flourished in the 12th century, whose great work, the "Gita Govinda," the "Song of the Shepherd Krishna," has been translated by Sir Edwin Arnold as the "Indian Song of Songs," in celebration of the love of Krishna and his wife Radha; it has often been compared with the "Song of Songs," in the Hebrew Scriptures.

JEAN D'ePEE (Jean, i. e. the Frenchman with the sword), a name given to Napoleon by his partisans who conspired for his restoration in 1814.

JEAN JACQUES, Rousseau, from his Christian name.

JEAN PAUL, RICHTER (q. v.), from his Christian name.

JEANNE D'ALBRET. See D'ALBRET, JEANNE.

JEANNE D'ARC. See JOAN OF ARC.

JEBB, PROFESSOR, eminent Greek scholar, born in Dundee; elected in 1889 Regius Professor of Greek in Cambridge; has represented Cambridge in Parliament since 1891; edited "Sophocles," "The Attic Orators,"

"Introduction to Homer," &c.; B. 1841.

JEDBURGH (3), county town of Roxburghs.h.i.+re, picturesquely situated on the Jed, 30 m. SW. of Berwick, and 10 m. SW. of Kelso; is an ancient town of many historic memories; made a royal burgh by David I.; contains the ruins of an abbey, and has some woollen manufactures.

JEDDAH (46), a town on the Red Sea, 65 m. W. of Mecca, of which it is the port, where the pilgrims disembark for the holy city; is a place of trade, less considerable than it once was.

JEEJEEBHOY, SIR JAMSETJEE, Indian philanthropist, a Pa.r.s.ee by birth and creed, born in Bombay; realised a fortune as a merchant, and employed it in releasing debtors from jail by paying their debts, and in founding a hospital and schools; in 1857 was made a baronet (1783-1859).

JEFFERIES, JOHN RICHARD, writer on rural subjects, born near Swindon, Wilts, son of a gamekeeper; was first a journalist and novelist, but attained success in "The Gamekeeper at Home," 1878; other books display a very accurate faculty of observation and description, a reverence for nature, for rural scenes and people; "The Story of my Heart," 1883, is an introspective and somewhat morbid autobiography; he died after six years' illness at Goring, Suss.e.x; Prof. Saintsbury p.r.o.nounces him "the greatest minute describer of English country life since White of Selborne" (1848-1887).

JEFFERSON, JOSEPH, comedian, born in Philadelphia, of theatrical lineage; was on the stage at the age of 3; made his first success in New York as Dr. Pangloss in 1857, and in London in 1865 began to play his most famous role, Rip van Winkle, a most exquisite exhibition of histrionic genius; B. 1829.

JEFFERSON, THOMAS, American statesman, born at Shadwell, Virginia; took a prominent part in the Revolution, and claimed to have drawn up the Declaration of Independence; he secured the decimal coinage for the States in 1783; was plenipotentiary in France in 1784, and subsequently minister there; third President, 1801-1807, he saw the Louisiana purchase and the prohibition of the slave-trade; after his retirement he devoted himself to furthering education till his death at Monticello, Va.; he was a man of extremes, but honest and consistent in his policy (1743-1826).

JEFFREY, FRANCIS, LORD, a celebrated critic and lawyer, born in Edinburgh; trained for and called to the bar in 1794; with a fine cultivated literary taste devoted himself princ.i.p.ally to literary criticism, and being a Whig in politics was a.s.sociated with the originators of the _EDINBURGH REVIEW_ (q. v.), and became its first editor in 1802, which he continued to be till 1829, contributing to its pages all along articles of great brilliancy; he was distinguished also at the bar in several famous trials; became Lord Advocate of Scotland in 1830, M.P. for Edinburgh in 1832, and finally, in 1834, one of the judges in the Court of Session; lie was a dark-eyed, nimble little man, of alert intelligence and quick in all his movements; died at Craigcrook, near Edinburgh (1773-1850).

JEFFREYS, BARON, of infamous memory, born in Wales; became Chief-Justice of England in 1863; was one of the advisers and promoters of the tyrannical proceedings of James II.'s reign, and notorious for his cruel and vindictive judgments as a judge, to the indignation of the people; tried to escape on the arrival of William; was discovered lurking in a public-house at Wapping, and apprehended and committed to the Tower, where he died (1648-1689).

JEHOVAH, the name of G.o.d in the Hebrew Scriptures as _self-existent_, and the Creator and Lord of all things, in the regard of the Jews too sacred to be p.r.o.nounced, and which in the Authorised Version is often rendered by the word LORD in small capital letters.

JEHOVIST, the presumed author of the Jehoistic portions of the Pentateuch. See ELOHIST.

JEKYLL, DR., AND MR. HYDE, the good nature and the bad struggling for the ascendency in the same person, generally to the defeat of the former.

JELF, RICHARD WILLIAM, Princ.i.p.al of King's College, London; was educated at Oxford, became Fellow of Oriel, canon of Christ's Church, and Princ.i.p.al of King's College; is remembered chiefly for his rigid orthodoxy and for the part he played in depriving Maurice of his professors.h.i.+p at King's College (1798-1871).

JEMAPPES (11), a manufacturing Belgian town, 3 m. W. of Mons, where Dumouriez in the name of the French Republic defeated the Austrians in 1792.

JEMINDAR, a native officer in the Indian army of rank equal to that of lieutenant in the British.

JENA (13), in Saxe-Weimar, on the Saale, 14 m. SE. of Weimar, an old town with memories of Luther, Goethe, and Schiller; has a university founded to be a centre of Reformation influence, and since a.s.sociated with Fichte, Sch.e.l.ling, Hegel, and the Schlegels, who were teachers there; on the same day in October 14, 1806, two victories were won near the town by French troops over the Prussians, the collective name for both being "the battle of Jena."

"JENKINS'S EAR," refers to an incident which provoked a war with Spain in 1739, viz., the conduct of the officer of a Spanish guards.h.i.+p not far from Havana towards the captain of an English trading s.h.i.+p of the name of Jenkins; the Spaniards boarded his s.h.i.+p, could find nothing contraband on board, but treated him cruelly, cut off his left ear, which he brought home in wadding, to the inflaming of the English people against Spain, with the above-named issue.